1 source 3h ago
Rintaro Says Animation's Content Glut Makes the New Hard to Find
Rintaro, 85, spoke at a roundtable during the 31st Busan International Film Festival, where he gave a masterclass titled A Living Legend in Japanese Animation.
Reporting from 1 source: Cartoon Brew.
Why it matters
The veteran's complaint is about volume rather than budgets: with content surrounding animators all day, the departure from Japanese animation's standard frame that he built his career on is harder to attempt.
Key Facts
- Rintaro, 85, gave a masterclass titled A Living Legend in Japanese Animation at the 31st Busan International Film Festival, held October 6 to 15.
- The festival's Japanese animation focus screened The White Snake Enchantress, the 1958 Toei Animation film on which Rintaro has an in-between animator credit.
- Rintaro directed Galaxy Express 999, Adieu Galaxy Express 999, The Dagger of Kamui and Metropolis.
- Rintaro said content now surrounds animators from the moment they wake until they sleep, making it difficult to find or create something new.
- Nezumikozo Jirokichi, his short film, imagines what a lost film by Sadao Yamanaka might have looked like.
Asked about turning points in the industry, the director of Galaxy Express 999 and Metropolis said he had once found it easy to make something new because few film and video works were available. Today, he said, content surrounds animators from the moment they wake, and creating something new is difficult.
Busan's special focus on Japanese animation screened The White Snake Enchantress, the 1958 Toei Animation film on which Rintaro holds an in-between animator credit. He went on to direct episodes of Kimba the White Lion and 1963's Astro Boy during the founding of Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production. His argument at the roundtable, shared with Korea's Cine21, is about method as much as output: he described his work as montage, overlapping images, against what he called Disney's natural style. His recent short Nezumikozo Jirokichi imagines a lost film by Sadao Yamanaka.
Written with AI by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited. See our editorial policy.
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